North Korea's "diplomatic hostages"

Strategy Page:

The North Korean regime has issued a strong "reminder" to its diplomats, and other personnel stationed abroad, that they are not to have more than one child with them on a foreign posting. This suggests North Korea is worried about possible defections by diplomats, consular officials, business agents, etc., who've got their wives and kids with them in some foreign country. If they can only take one child with them, those that remain home essentially become hostages to their good behavior. The North Korean government has become increasingly alarmed at the number of diplomats defecting and, even worse, those who stick around, but in the pay for American, South Korean and Chinese intelligence agencies.



The response to this order was startling; many of these parents have refused to send children back to North Korea. To old North Korea hands, such defiance to authority is startling. But these North Korea government officials know their country is a basket case, and are willing to risk losing their jobs, rather than send any of their children back to a home country that is, day-by-day, becoming a hellish parody of the communist "workers paradise."

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... True Believers have been gradually replaced by Practical Pretenders. What's happening now, with North Korean government officials openly defying their government, while pretending not to, is the best example of how North Korea culture is evolving. It's weird, it's wretched and, in a perverse way, wonderful.

The real world is creeping into and out of the Hermit kingdom. The breakdown has taken longer than in Eastern Europe, but the cracks are beginning to be exposed.